Saturday, May 21, 2011

The 16-year-old high school girl who challenged Michelle Bachmann to a debate is claiming she's received threats of violence and rape.

I call bullshit.

Here's the deal: A week or so ago, Cherry Hill student Amy Myers challenged Bachmann to a debate on the Constitution. She threw down the gauntlet in a letter posted on CNN's iReport. The story made the news and blogs, Congresswoman Bachmann didn't respond, and attention wandered to other things as new stories replaced the challenge.

Now Ms. Myers and her father, Wayne, are in the news again... This time, they tell the Courier-Press they're alarmed about comments on conservative websites.

"A lot of them are calling me a whore"

They say commenters have threatened to publish their address, or commit violence or rape.

Here's why I'm not buying it.

First, they haven't shown proof. No screen captures, no links, nothing. These two are social-media-savvy enough to upload to iReport and run a Facebook page dedicated to this publicity stunt debate, but they didn't blog or otherwise document these heinous acts?

Second, the father claimed that the school had received threatening mail... but the school says the calls they've received were questions about whether Myers is a student, who wrote the letter to Bachmann, and similar inquiries.

Bastnagel said the district's security director told Wayne Myers none of the calls contained threats. He also assured Myers the district would investigate any threats.

Also, the father claims to have his mail carrier and a neighbor watching for suspicious activity. He says:

"I personally did not think there would be a reaction like actual stalking and the vitriol that's coming out."

But neither the story or the quoted police officers mention a stalker.

So already, this whole thing strikes me as shady. But it gets stranger.

Amy was set to give the C-P a video interview. The night before, "a somewhat panicked-sounding Wayne Myers phoned to cancel". His reason? The threats sent to the school. You know... the ones the school assured him didn't happen.

But he also mentioned it would be better for Amy if Bachmann couldn't study the videos.

"If she does the video interview, they might find certain weaknesses. We don't want to bring up what her debate strategy is going to be."

Good grief. This guy's a goof. And people are spreading this b.s. around like it's pinkeye - and escalating it. Already at least one message on the Facebook page is calling the mystery comments "death threats".

What we have here is an unhinged liberal activist preaching to the choir. They expect Tea Partyers to be misogynistic haters because that is the stereotype they've created. But in reality I would stake my reputation on any actual threats being quickly and vehemently shouted down by folks from the Right. That's how we roll. We debate ideas, not personalities.